Sun goes nova.

[TomMazanec]

c.1960 short story.
First man on Moon, to stay several months. Weird sunspots are occurring and the radio jokes someone punched it in the solar plexus. Just as the sun sets a mountaintop flashes and melts as the radio cried out "The Sun Went Nova!". He watches the Earth turn into a cueball. Two weeks later the sun rises ten times brighter, but the landing rocket was designed for Mercury and other planets so he survives. By the time he has to return to Earth the sun has gone back to normal and the boiled oceans have rained out. But the Earth is sterile. All his petri dishes come up blank. Finally one shows bacteria, but it was contamination of the ship's bacteria. Inspiration dawns, and he opens up the rocket and dies breathing the smokey air.
The last line is about the animals leaving the ark two by two.

 

[hitmouse]

I have certainly read a story ending with a dying astronaut’s bacteria bringing life to a sterile world. I wonder if it was this one, or if that theme has been used elsewhere. I cannot remember anything except the ending of the story.

 

[otistdog]

@hitmouse, I'm guessing that you're thinking of Alfred Bester's "Adam and No Eve". I'm not sure if it's the same story (partially misremembered) by the OP, but it does seem like there's a good chance.

 

[hitmouse]

@hitmouse, I'm guessing that you're thinking of Alfred Bester's "Adam and No Eve". I'm not sure if it's the same story (partially misremembered) by the OP, but it does seem like there's a good chance.

Yes that was the one I remembered.

 

[Rodders]

That sounds like a very interesting story,

 

[TomMazanec]

"A scientist builds a space vessel using a new power source of his own design, but inadvertently ignites a conflagration which destroys all life on earth before he returns."

Sounds like one I read where the first FTL ship to Alpha Centauri arrives and Alpha Centauri A explodes. They theorize that exiting hyperspace created a "pulse" that detonated the star. Alpha Centauri B survived, so they return to the Solar System at Neptune's orbit, far enough to be "safe". But they find that entering hyperspace also created a pulse that blew up the sun. Is that the one?

Another "sun goes nova" story had one survivor in a bank vault. The vault had a tiny chink in it, which let in a laser like sun beam. To gauge it, he stuck hundred dollar bills in the beam. The first day it was consumed in a flash, the second day it shriveled and caught flame, the third day it gradually blackened and broke up, the fourth a small brown spot slowly formed...

Anyone know title.author of those two?

Then of course there was Rod Serling's favorite example of this trope:

The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes | Maclean's | June 15, 1950

archive.macleans.ca

I remember a reference somewhere to one entitled "N-Hour" but don't remember who wrote it.

My favorite example is Arthur C. Clarke's "Rescue Party".

I read a reference somewhere to one entitled "N-Hour" but don't remember anything else about it except an astronomer gets a formula for calculating when the sun will blow (but different from Heinlein's "Year of the Jackpot").

 

[TomMazanec]

Also Niven’s one about Tipler Cylinders and global causality violations.

 

[BAYLOR]

"A scientist builds a space vessel using a new power source of his own design, but inadvertently ignites a conflagration which destroys all life on earth before he returns."

Sounds like one I read where the first FTL ship to Alpha Centauri arrives and Alpha Centauri A explodes. They theorize that exiting hyperspace created a "pulse" that detonated the star. Alpha Centauri B survived, so they return to the Solar System at Neptune's orbit, far enough to be "safe". But they find that entering hyperspace also created a pulse that blew up the sun. Is that the one?

Another "sun goes nova" story had one survivor in a bank vault. The vault had a tiny chink in it, which let in a laser like sun beam. To gauge it, he stuck hundred dollar bills in the beam. The first day it was consumed in a flash, the second day it shriveled and caught flame, the third day it gradually blackened and broke up, the fourth a small brown spot slowly formed...

Anyone know title.author of those two?

Then of course there was Rod Serling's favorite example of this trope:

The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes | Maclean's | June 15, 1950

archive.macleans.ca

I remember a reference somewhere to one entitled "N-Hour" but don't remember who wrote it.

My favorite example is Arthur C. Clarke's "Rescue Party".

I read a reference somewhere to one entitled "N-Hour" but don't remember anything else about it except an astronomer gets a formula for calculating when the sun will blow (but different from Heinlein's "Year of the Jackpot").

The Boy who Predicted Earthquakes was a good Night Gallery episodes. The problem with the premise of that story , is our sun will never go supernova . It's the wrong type of star .

 

[TomMazanec]

There was the Movie Supernova and A C Clarke’s songs of Distant Rarth.

 

[BAYLOR]

There was the Movie Supernova and A C Clarke’s songs of Distant Rarth.

if our sun was Blue star , then yes , its future would be that of nova , because they they tend to be far more massive , burn far hotter, build up an Iron core and burn though their fuel in a few million years. Our Sun is a Yellow star and they tend to not go nova .

 

[TomMazanec]

But we didn’t know that a lifetime ago, in the Golden Age.
Niven did a super flare one with “Inconstant Moon” and Bova with Testfire.

 

[BAYLOR]

But we didn’t know that a lifetime ago, in the Golden Age.
Niven did a super flare one with “Inconstant Moon” and Bova with Testfire.

True, and in the Golden age they still believed in the steady state theory of the universe swell.

But even so, if I like the story, I can suspend disbelief.

Niven's Inconstant Moon( which ive never read ) was adapted for the New Outer Limits. It was a terrific episode.

 

[otistdog]

@TomMazanec, the story about the sun going nova via hyperspace pulse is "Time Fuze" (1954) by Randall Garrett. Very short but memorable.